Journals
2026 EN
Pustu Yunus
Nestorians from Türkiye (Hakkâri) and Iran (Urmia and Salmas) aligned themselves with the Entente Powers during the First World War. Due to this alignment, the entire Nestorian population of Hakkâri and a portion from Iran migrated to Iraq in 1918. They lived in Iraq as privileged actors, closely aligned with and often executing British administrative policies until 1933. Their British-backed stance during this period provoked widespread hostility among the Iraqi populace. This enmity reached its peak after the 1933 Iraqi Nestorian Revolt, and Iraq was no longer a safe area for Nestorians. Amid this turmoil, the League of Nations spearheaded a global search for a homeland for the Nestorians between 1933 and 1936. In this process, efforts were made for resettlement in the Paraná province of Brazil, the Rupununi region of British Guiana, and the Ghab and Khabur regions of Syria. However, these efforts failed to yield the intended outcome, and in 1936 the League of Nations officially terminated the relocation initiative. In this study, based on records from the Turkish Diplomatic Archive and newspaper reports, the search for a homeland for the Nestorians in Iraq between 1933 and 1936 is discussed.
Journals
2026 EN
Mülberger Annette C.
The aim of this paper is methodological: it deals with the question of how to arrive at children’s voices when assessing archival sources. Based on the current methodological discussion (section 2), I develop a counter-biased, child-centred reading of archival sources containing youngsters’ responses to two psychological tests (sections 3 and 4). Both tests aimed at triggering quick, verbal and written reactions in schoolchildren. In one of them, a psychiatrist asked a class of eight-year-old girls (shortly after the First World War) to explain what “courage” meant to them. A comparison with definitions given before the war showed that for most of these Leipzig schoolgirls, “courage” had become a gendered characteristic of the soldier fighting in the war. Nevertheless, through reading “against the researcher grain”, we can detect how a few used the occasion to self-affirm their own courageousness. The second test series consisted of word associations undertaken by a teacher-psychologist with seventeen- to eighteen-year-old boys at a Catholic secondary school in 1917 in Budapest, at a time when the group was being groomed to become “courageous soldiers”. Again, an examination of the outliers helped me recognise two opposite trends in the boys’ reactions: an echo of war pedagogy and an expression of resistance and worries. I conclude that, despite the restrictedness of the testing situations, there was some room for students’ personal expressions. A child-centred counter-bias reading seems instrumental in unearthing reactive options and unheard dissident voices as an alternative to the docile averages calculated by the researchers.
Journals
2026 EN
Kim Sun · Kang Sungwoo
This paper examines how the production of new elites through education and training at newly formed higher educational institutes affects the ideological effects of educational reform introduced by occupying powers. In particular, the rationale and processes used to reform the higher education systems in North and South Korea under the Soviet and US military governments, respectively, that were established during the military occupation and state formation period are analysed. For this purpose, the political milieu of the two Koreas during the early Cold War period is described using a comparative historical approach, and socialisation theory is employed to investigate the ideologisation of these education systems in accordance with the interests of the occupying powers.
Journals
2026 EN
Dalljo Jessica · von Engelhardt Kerrin · Kliche Navas Luis
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This paper explores how colonialism and coloniality were addressed in educational media during the Cold War period. Beginning with the October Revolution, the ideological point of reference of state socialism had been the grand narrative of overcoming both imperialism and colonialism as a prescription and justification for the socialist path of development. In the latter half of the twentieth century said narrative was significant in our different cases. While the German Democratic Republic saw itself as a country of realised socialism, in the case of Mozambique one could speak of aspired socialism, and in the case of Nicaragua of socialist orientation. The paper deepens our understanding of representations and interpretations of colonialism and coloniality within educational media in these dissimilar scenarios. We identify these specific references to the socialist grand narrative as decisive for central national narratives and state-building processes in the contexts of the GDR, Mozambique, and Nicaragua.
Journals
2026 EN
Gergerian Sarko
The “War on Drugs” has been presented by the U.S. federal government as a way to protect people. Yet over 100,000 people in the United States die from overdose deaths each year. The government continues to ban personal choice by criminalizing those who consume intoxicating plants, cacti, fungi, and animal secretions. Utilizing a depth psychological approach, I explore the hidden shadow associated with waging this type of war. I show that the “War on Drugs” is a war on humans and their psychosomatic totality that in many people includes archetypal inclinations to modulate the ego complex and individuate. These inclinations can be traced back to our oldest ancestors. The Greek myth of Dionysus offers evidence of one ancient mythical tradition that embraced rather than repressed the human inclination to commune with the anima mundi through the consumption of intoxicating substances to experience death without dying. These practices comprise an integral part of many ancient mythical worldviews. A psychological death of the ego complex allowed for the return of the practitioner in a less ego-directed, fearful state. This paper will highlight the value of harm reduction to ensure all people can integrate their psychosomatic birth, death, and rebirth journeys. Evidence-based recommendations are shared to bring the war to an end and prepare for a decriminalized world where Dionysus can rise again!
Journals
2026 EN
Morales Alexander W. · Myres Jason D.
This article analyzes Luis Muñoz Marín’s symbolic redeployment of Puerto Rican exemplarity , the geopolitical and strategic logic of situating the island as a hemispheric gateway to the Americas, following the failed assassinations and political insurgencies of 1950. By casting his nationalist adversaries as communist puppets of Eastern empires, Muñoz Marín solidified his position as Puerto Rico’s governor and demonstrated his allegiance to U.S. administrations during the Cold War. In this regard, Muñoz Marín used the symbolic, geopolitical, and military exemplarity of Puerto Rico to navigate a colonial double-bind, the notion that a colonial power must control the Caribbean as an (inward/outward) invasion point. To this end, we read Muñoz Marín’s rhetoric as a form of resistance against geopolitical alignment, revealing the anticolonial advantages of embracing the island’s rhetorical hybridity that manifests at the border between national independence and federated statehood.
Journals
2026 EN
Erdos David
The post-War Commonwealth citizenship concept promised a post-imperial system of non-alien status and rights. Although the former Dominions maintained (and South Africa furthered) discriminatory population policies and the new members also adopted restrictive approaches to citizenship rights, some optimism remained into the 1960s. This evaporated and was replaced by a crisis brought on by East Africa’s ‘Africanisation’ initiatives. Although a trend against recognition commenced in the mid-1970s, almost half the Commonwealth at least symbolically recognise such citizenship today and around one-third accord it limited electoral or other rights. Nevertheless, absent new momentum, a non-recognition trend will continue. From 2011 to 2018 Commonwealth citizenship was invoked in a proposed pan-Commonwealth initiative to facilitate short-term mobility especially for business purposes. This initiative chimes with the new Secretary-General’s focus on renewing the ‘Commonwealth advantage’ in trade and investment, might usefully be revitalised and could provide continued justification for legal recognition of Commonwealth citizenship itself.
Journals
2026 EN
Swed Ori
Studies on repression have focused on states’ actions, where law enforcement agencies surveil, detain, manipulate, and harm civilians. This study points to a trend of privatization of repressive capabilities, committing those to market forces. The paper discusses the commodification of high-end, exclusive security functions and their risks to democracy, individuals’ rights, and the rule of law. Initially intended to address manpower shortages in wars, privatized military and security functions have evolved into a booming market. When demand declined after the conclusion of the Iraq War in 2011, the industry explored domestic opportunities, translating the skills and experience gained in conflict areas to domestic clients. These commodities differ significantly from the tools and skills typically available to domestic law enforcement or civilians. In turn, those can be used to expand disparities domestically and encroach on democratic processes. Affluent clients and local governments can utilize elite methods and tools of surveillance and repression, mostly targeting those with less power in society. The paper explores this process and its implications across three cases: Black Cube’s involvement in the Harvey Weinstein case, TigerSwan’s employment of counterterrorism tactics against protesters, and Palantir’s surveillance services to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Journals
2026 EN
Mia Irene
The United States’ unlawful capture of Nicolás Maduro was the most emphatic statement to date of President Donald Trump’s vision of US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, in which energy and resource security, coercion and transactional deal-making will often take precedence over democratic principles, respect for sovereignty and international law. While much attention will focus on how developments in Venezuela reshape regional geopolitics, US–Latin American relations and Venezuela’s future, the operation may also have important effects on domestic and international crime. They could ultimately compromise regional security and undermine the very ‘war on drugs’ that the Trump administration has cited as the primary justification for the intervention. Countering transnational criminal networks requires coordinated transnational responses. The current US approach is eroding the trust on which such cooperation depends.
Journals
2026 EN
Graham Thomas
From the United States’ independence until the mid-twentieth century, American exceptionalism – a deep belief in the country’s status as a uniquely virtuous nation – impelled it to resist engaging in the cynical balance-of-power politics characteristic of great powers. It became permanently engaged only during the bipolar Cold War and the ensuing unipolar moment. In that era, the US presented itself first as the moral leader of the ‘free world’, then as the chief advocate of a rules-based world order. With the end of US primacy and the return of multipolarity and great-power competition, these options are gone. In China and Russia, the United States faces rivals espousing different sets of values that it cannot hope to vanquish. The concept of competitive coexistence offers a way forward. It reconciles permanent engagement with moral purpose by acknowledging the persistence of rivalry and the diversity of values, while charting a course that diminishes the risks of war and leaves space for cooperation on global challenges. Still the pre-eminent power, the United States can take the lead in forging coalitions to meet those challenges, leading through persuasion rather than domination.